


The Little Girl - One-Shot

by JosefAik



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Braavos, Essos, Origin Story, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Other, Posted Elsewhere, The Faceless Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosefAik/pseuds/JosefAik
Summary: The teeming city of Braavos is full of life and death. Wandering in the shadows are the Faceless Men, an elite group of assassins who must abandon their very being and become No-One in the name of the Many Faced God. They must abandon all hate, love, and regret, but such acts are not always easy. Their newest recruit, a waif, wanders the city, consumed by her very being, unable to cast it aside as she must. Can she find the strength to do what must be done, or will the burden of thought and freedom overcome her?
Relationships: Jaqen H'ghar & Waif
Kudos: 3





	The Little Girl - One-Shot

The little girl passed through the bustling streets of Braavos, an unseen shadow creeping through the halls of a titan. Beggars lined the streets, old men with half-broken canes, young girls who still bore the bruises from their beatings the night before, and soldiers, fresh back from some war where they had risked their lives for their homes. This was their reward. This was the respect that Braavos showed them. 

She turned right, slipping unnoticed down a quieter backalley. Two bravo’s lay slumped against the wall, their clothes stinking of piss and their breath reeking of too much drink. A little girl, no more than six years, cut away their purses and scampered away with their fortunes. She passed them by, not paying them a moment’s thought. They were not why she was here. 

Braavos was a city teeming with life, but it was also a hive of scum and insects, hiding from the light in the squalor of their shadow city. She had been born here, twelve years ago. It was her home, and It had made her. She could have drowned in this city of water and bone, but instead she had been reborn anew. Or she would be. Soon enough. 

Purveyors of various wares called out their produce, but she passed them by. She did not care for oysters, nor clams, nor cockles. That was not why she was here. 

She passed by a large building with a bright red door. Outside it grew lemon trees. She didn’t even realise how odd that was, as they did not grow in Braavos. She was focused. Two of the Sealords men walked up ahead, and so she slipped down an even danker alley. There were no merchants here. Just old men with missing teeth and sharp knives. They leered at her from the shadows, but they were not so foolish as to confront her. They knew their place. 

One of the men had cruel eyes and a scraggly, grey beard. He had been drinking from the early hours. That was clear from the look and stench of him. He wore ragged clothes, though they had been smart once. Time had dragged this man down to here, the backstreets of his backwater city. 

“Come ‘ere, girl.” 

He called to her, and the old men around him shuffled away, anxious to put some distance between them and him. They didn’t desire the association anymore. 

She walked to him. There was no fear in her stride, nor in her eyes, despite the fact that she was twelve years and this man was probably four score and ten. He leaned down to her and put his mouth to her ear. She shuddered. It wasn’t his smell, or his look, it was the memories that he brought back. Yet this man was a stranger to her. 

“Do this and you will be lost forever, girl. Know that.” 

Then he pulled away. The girl hadn’t realised that she had clenched her fists, but her hands were balled up so tight that her knuckles had gone white. The stubs of her fingernails had dug into her palms and a trickle of blood was now running down her right wrist. She wiped it away and glared up at the man. His face was passive and blank, and then he turned, walking back the way she had come. 

She had been wrong. He was no stranger. He had known exactly what he was doing. 

The little girl shook her head and breathed in deeply. She tried to put the memory of the man to the back of her mind. That was not why she was here. That was not why she was here. She moved on. 

Soon the leering old men gave way to nicer streets. The stone here was white or sandy, with colourful curtains and decorations adorning the houses. The streets were wider and the merchants fewer. There were less beggars here too. She saw one, a haggard old war veteran with only one leg, getting harassed by some of the Sealord’s men. Old her might have tried to stop them, but now she knew that standing up to bullies just earned the ire of more important people. She did not want the trouble. She was the unseen shadow. She put her head down and moved along the way. 

Trees started to line the sides of the road as she got deeper into the highclass districts of the city. Gone were the unwanted blemishes, replaced with a blissful ignorance of the struggles faced by the majority of the city. The Sealord’s Palace was somewhere to her left, but that was not why she was here. The Sealord was responsible for much suffering, but her crusade was more personal. 

The memories flashed across her mind again. A gnarled hand creeping up her thigh, the smell of alcohol on a thin, reedy breath, the sound of wheezing and panting echoing through the night air. 

And then they were gone. Her hand was placed on a wall, her breaths coming quicker and quicker. She concentrated on a red blooming flower just in front of her. She imagined blood dripping from the petals, splashing down onto the pavement like a waterfall of justice and regrets. Her life summed up in one image. 

It was not far from here now. She knew that. She gathered up all her strength and the quick breaths slowed. She started her journey again, as she pushed on through the emotional pain and lifechanging memories to the point where that justice would be hers, and those regrets would cease. 

Her skin crawled as she got closer, as if that hand was stroking every part of her, touching even her soul, and making her wither. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide in the depths of the temple, with the dead and the faces. A thousand empty eyes looking down on her, judging her… It would be better than this. 

She had to be strong, She had to end it. 

The square opened up before her. She heard the calls of children, playing with each other on the rooftops, unaware of the suffering that surrounded their island of tranquillity. She saw boutiques and stalls that sold hot drinks. In the centre of the square was an array of palisades, covered in climbing plants and blossoming flowers. At the centre of the palisade stood an old man. 

He wore smarter clothes than when she remembered him, but the rest of him she was familiar with. His gnarled hands and heavy eyelids, that masked cruel, reptile-like eyes. The slight sneer to his bulbous lips, and the straight line of his austere nose. His chin sagged underneath his face, wrinkles masking bulging veins. She could smell his perfume from here. It was heavy. It had to be, to mask the scent of indecency and depravity. 

Her hand went to the knife she had hidden away in her rags. The people hadn’t noticed her yet, but it wouldn’t be long. In the alleys and the chaos she was a shadow, but here she was a waif amongst the wellfed, a ghost at the banquet. She could not hide here. Not forever. 

She remembered all this man had done to her. The way he had pulled her close and whispered in her ear. The way he had tried to force himself on her, even though she had pushed him away. The way his fingernails had dug into her bare flesh as she tried to run… 

He had destroyed her life, her dignity, her respect for herself. He had driven her away from her home and her family. The shame, the dishonour that it would bring them… He had driven her into the arms of the priests. 

She was no-one, that was true, but when she looked at this man she wanted to be that girl again. She wanted to force herself onto him and take everything that he loved with her knife, and make him watch. She wanted to be someone, even if it was just for a few fleeting moments. 

But if she did that then she would lose the only family that she had left. She would be lost to the temple, to the priests. 

She felt the pommel of the knife, the cold steel of the blade. She imagined it warm with the blood of this man. She imagined the satisfaction, the justice, but she also imagined the loss. Killing this man, this monster… It would satiate what part of her lusted for revenge, but it would leave her homeless, alone, to live like those beggars on the street, bloody and bruised. 

She would be lost. 

The little girl’s eyes fell to the street. She closed them. A solitary tear trickled down her cheek. That was how she mourned for the last bitter memories of her former life. The girl that she had been… She couldn’t be that. It was not her place, not her pain to bare any longer. Her place was not here. She was a waif amongst strays, a shadow in the darkness, and a girl unseen. 

She looked back at the man. A dull longing ached in her stomach, and the cold steel burned against her thigh. Killing him… It wasn’t her path. She would never have her justice. That was not why she was here.


End file.
